


Sides of the line

by SharpestRose



Category: On the Line (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seattle grunge, a line, and a boyband. And Kevin and Rod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sides of the line

**1\. Left**

"You took down Kurt Cobain." 

Rod looked up at the blank spot on his wall and shrugged at Kevin. "Yeah. It was freaking me out, dead guy staring down at me." 

"I heard some of his note. The news played a tape of his wife reading it, yesterday." 

"Mm. Yeah." Rod picked away at his thumbnail, not looking at Kevin as they sat in the horrendously unfashionable beanbag couch Rod refused to throw out. "I feel sorry for her. Losing somebody like that. And you can tell she's got a lotta love in her, passion. Seemed like he did too, but look how that turned out." 

Kevin sighed. "I wouldn't take it personally. You've been bumming around all week and cutting class, and I know you really liked Nirvana but so did I, so did most of our school. Why's it hit you so much harder?" 

"Because he sold out." Rod's voice was flat. "He was supposed to be on the level, saying the truth. And it was just more lies. The music industry's screwed." 

"Well, we knew that already." Kevin smiled, patting Rod's knee. "Isn't that kinda the point? That we're the real stuff, we're gonna change the world?" 

"Don't even joke about it." 

"I'm not." 

"Yeah, you are." Rod shoved himself up out of the beanbag and wandered over to the window, picking at the fraying hem of his shapeless Stillwater tshirt. Rod's hands always had to be doing something. "When we graduate, you're going to do something ordinary and smart and get a good job, and I'll be the overgrown kid with the stupid dreams who borrows money off his smart friend. We're never gonna be famous." 

Kevin looked down at his own hands, guilty for how close the words were to the truth. He'd never talked about quitting the band, but had never denied his plans, either. 

"Never say never." he offered lamely. 

"Whatever." Rod's voice was bitter. "'Nother ten years and you're not even gonna want to know me, I'll just be mooching around your place and pissing everyone off." 

"Hey." hoisting himself to his feet, Kevin went over and put his arm on Rod's shoulder. "That's not going to happen. No matter how the band thing turns out, we're buds for life. Ok?" 

"'kay." Rod grunted. 

Kevin was tired. Just utterly exhausted. The thought of scabbing around in a band for the rest of his life was appealing, but he'd always come home from practice in time to study, always planned for a real career. It was the same part of him that made him so shy around girls, a cowardice that caused him to second-guess every impulse he'd had. 

Lying around in Rod's room that smelt like bong water, twanging out butchered cover songs that made them laugh blue in the face, that was where Kevin felt at home. But it was scary, to put security on the line for some half-assed dream. He couldn't do it. 

"You ok?" Rod was asking. Kevin grinned, shaking the dark thoughts away. 

"Sure. Worried about you, that's all. You get way too intense." 

" _I_ get way too intense? You practically implode when you have to choose spaghetti or tacos in the cafeteria." Rod laughed, tacking Kevin down into the beanbag couch. Kevin grinned at the sudden display of high spirits, trying to wriggle out from under Rod's weight. 

"Dude, you reek. Take a shower." he protested, pinned against the shifting give of the furniture. 

"Yeah, well, you smell like -" Rod made a production of sniffing at Kevin's neck, not letting his captive squirm away. "Prep! You smell like a suit." 

"Well somebody's gotta have a head for business, otherwise you'd probably end up signing away your firstborn child or something in our eventual record contract." he joked back. 

"Nah. I gotta cleanse you of your... uh... cleanliness." Rod declared, rubbing against Kevin. "Soon you'll smell like me, the stink of responsibility will be banished." 

"Get off, you freak." Kevin laughed as Rod's nimble fingers began to tickle lightly on his sides. "Quit it." 

"Say uncle." 

"Uncle." 

"No fair, it's no good if you just do it. Wimpy bastard. You gotta put up a fight." 

"Like this?" Kevin pressed against Rod's body, half-rolling them so he had the upper hand. "Now you're gonna smell like prep." 

"A fate worse than death. I can't let you do that to me!" Rod grabbed out, seizing Kevin's wrist. "I see I'll have to remove the odor completely, release your mind from the evil clutches of the normals!" he swiped his tongue along the inside of Kevin's wrist with a wicked grin. 

"Gross, Rod. That tickles!" Kevin laughed. Rod repeated the action, the lick trailing higher towards the elbow this time. "Uh, Rod?" 

"Yeah?" Rod looked at his face innocently. 

"What the hell are you doing?" 

"Do you want me to stop?" 

Kevin's cheeks blushed pink and he felt the same stupid butterflies feeling that happened whenever he got close to a girl. But this was Rod, comfortable familiar Rod who borrowed all his clothes and albums without asking and didn't tease him the whole time his voice was breaking. 

"No. Don't stop. It feels kinda cool." Kevin smiled. "And my evil germs will make your mouth preppy." 

"Could a preppy mouth do this?" Rod asked, and Kevin didn't have time to do more than blink before there were other lips against his, the soft scratch of Rod's peach fuzz on his cheek. It was nice, safe, no frightening risks hiding in the warm corners of Rod's mouth, in the scrabble of fingers against his skin. 

They got to second base and lingered for a while, then pulled their clothes right again and put all Rod's Nirvana stuff in a box and took it to the record store, trading for a new guitar strap and a bootleg of a Smashing Pumpkins show they'd gone to the year before. Rod copied it and let Kevin keep the master, and they both knew then that things were going to be ok no matter what happened with the band. 

 

 

 **2\. On**

So Kevin got the girl. And Rod got the music. But Rod got a girl as well, so it didn't seem fair somehow. 

 

 

 **3\. Right**

"You're crazy." 

"Jesus, dude, I thought if anybody was gonna understand it was going to be you!" Rod was not happy, thumping his fist against the bartop. 

"I don't see how it's such a big deal. You get to write your own stuff, and record it, and perform it. Isn't that what you told me it was about? The music?" 

"Kevin, I think you're you're failing to see the picture here. They want me to dance. With four other guys. And harmonize with them. That's not music. That's a boy band." 

"You're being a snob." 

"It's shilling!" Rod growled. "I always promised myself that I'd only get famous on my terms. I'm not selling my soul to some teenie machine -" 

"Tweenie. They actually call the market for boybands the tweenie market." 

"You're so helpful." Rod banged his head against the counter. "I don't want to dress in lameass clothes and have my picture in _Tiger Beat_. That's not me, when I decided to learn guitar I didn't do it to end up there, to become that." 

"You didn't do it to sit on your ass and be a prick, either." Kevin pointed out. "You still like Courtney Love, don't you?" 

"Yeah, but I don't see..." 

"She's not who she was in 1992, that was when you started playing, right?" Rod nodded in response to Kevin's query. "And I bet she didn't expect to be who she is now... it's called life. It takes you weird places." 

"You talk like a jingle." Rod complained. "It's all a bunch of crap. This stupid contract, Julie -" 

"Things rough again?" 

"God, Kevin, wake up! Julie and Abby are about twenty seconds from ditching us, they can't go even one second together without rolling their eyes at each other and calling us exasperating. Julie says I still act like a teenager, that I need to grow up." 

"Well, right now I agree with her." Kevin snapped, his stomach in knots over what Rod had said about Abby. He didn't want it to be true, he'd gone through so much to find her that it was sad to think their story would end like any other, but he'd seen the annoyance in her eyes whenever he hung with the guys at the bar, the weird look when he mucked around dancing on the kitchen floor. "This is the chance of a lifetime, don't mess it up." 

"Hey..." Rod looked over at him, gnawing on his lower lip as the thought formed. "You should audition too. They still need a bass vocalist. And..." 

"Rod." Kevin said gently. "You know that's not going to happen." 

"Why the hell not?" Rod exploded, glaring. "You just said it, this is the chance of a lifetime. What the hell is holding you here? A job you hate, making up stupid slogans to sell junk, and a girlfriend you're in love with the idea of but barely know in reality." his face softened, his voice dropping in volume. "Kevin, I'm scared outta my mind here. Not because it's a pop group, either... because it might actually happen. I might end up being all the things I used to dream of being, and you're not going to be there with me. I never thought I'd do this alone." 

"I'm not going away." Kevin didn't know what to say to the unexpected admission. "You owe me years of loans. I expect to be handsomely repaid once you're a millionaire." 

Rod swore under his breath. 

"I hadn't even thought about the money." 

"This isn't the horrible occasion you're making it out to be! You've always wanted this, now it's here, stop whining and get on with it!" Kevin ordered with a bright smile. Rod cast him a glance and then nodded slowly. 

"All right. But only if you audition." 

Kevin's smile faltered. "I'm not doing that." 

"Why not? I thought you got over that stupid stage fright after going on all those talk shows with Abby." 

"It's not that... the spotlight's your place, not mine. I'm Rod's-friend-Kevin, who sits and watches from the wings." 

Rod laughed and laughed, almost falling off his stool. 

"Are you serious? Everything I have I owe to you. You got me this contract. You inspired the one song I've actually managed to finish. You made me practice when all I wanted to do was get stoned and watch baseball. People recognise you in the street." 

"They'll recognise you soon enough, if you take this chance." 

Rod sighed. "Kevin, this isn't the life you're supposed to be living. You wear a tie to work and paint your toenails black." 

"It's called growing up. Everyone has to." 

"No, see, that's the thing. With this, we wouldn't have to." 

And suddenly Kevin could see what Rod wasn't saying. _If we never grew up, we could be seventeen again._

He thought of work, and of the uncomfortable silences between him and Abby. Imagined attending the Billboard awards with one arm around Rod's waist, safe and familiar and solid as a rock. Teenage girls screaming his name, he already knew what that might feel like from the women who'd replied to his fliers. 

It's called life. It takes you weird places. 

"All right." Kevin smiled. "Let's do it." 


End file.
